Siren: Blood Curse Review

Episodic content has never been scarier.

Like it or not, the survival horror genre has grown quite stale over the past few years. Players fight through hordes of monsters and bosses to eventually reach an ending, typically found within predictable areas with only a few jumps or suspenseful moments added. In fact, many of the characters within these titles are either more than capable of dealing with the supernatural situations at hand or frequently have more than enough items on hand that can be used as deadly tools. But take a group of normal people into a disturbing situation they have no control over, toss in a malevolent and relentless group of monsters, and mix in some mysterious time and plot reversals and you have Siren: Blood Curse, the recent retelling of the original title released on the PS2 four years ago. Including a new cast of characters, improved graphical engine and episodic content system, Blood Curse is an experiment in both gaming and horror. But does it manage to deliver the thrills and chills, or is it a bland experience waiting to be deleted?

The initial premise of Blood Curse is rather straightforward: an American TV crew for a paranormal exposé show travels to the mountains of Japan looking for the remains of Hanuda Village, a location rumored to have disappeared in a mudslide in 1976. The village is particularly notable for the crew of the show because it supposedly had a history of human sacrifice rituals and other occult situations. However, as the crew slowly approaches the supposed location of the town, they overhear screams and stumble upon a ceremony full of disturbing images, including people being killed. But that's the least of their worries, as they find themselves chased down by a number of figures that appear to be human but turn out to be anything but. Thus begins a nightmare that covers two days of terror for the crew and other people that happen to be in the nearby vicinity, including a high school student that's hiking through the mountains at the same time as the TV crew.

Unlike traditional survival horror titles, Blood Curse doesn't follow a conventional plot structure from point A to B. Instead, Blood Curse, akin to the original Siren, changes back and forth between different characters, focusing on what their individual situation happens to be as they try to survive the streets and surroundings of Hanuda. For the most part, every one of the usable characters in the game has similar control mechanics, such as attacking with the Square button, crouching with the Circle button or being able to strafe by holding down the L1 button. Similarly, they can use the directional pad to turn a flashlight on or off by pressing up on the D-pad, yell to other characters by hitting right on the D-pad, or set flares or traps by hitting down on the D-pad.

However, perhaps the most important ability that the characters will have available to them is the ability to perform what's known as sight jacking, where you literally view the world from the viewpoint of either another human being or one of the monstrous villagers known as Shibito. By holding down L2, players go into a trance where they hone in on anyone in the immediate vicinity. By tapping L1 or R1, you can change from one to another, allowing you to see what they see and where they are. Even better, you can lock these perspectives in, assigning each one to a face button so you can quickly switch back and forth between them. This is particularly useful when you're in the middle of trying to sneak around specific areas and are trying to avoid being picked apart by the Shibito.

Do ya feel lucky, monster? Do ya?

The Shibito are unlike monsters that you may have seen in other survival horror games. They're not like zombies that you can easily kill with a shot to the head nor do they get cleared out by moving from one area to another. You can attempt to kill them, but they'll get back up after a few minutes and chase you again as long as you're within eye sight. To give you a little breathing room, you need to get your hands on weapons of any kind, which range from sake bottles and wrenches to crowbars and axes. There are 50 different weapons at your disposal including firearms, and each one of them has different effectiveness ratings ranging from subpar to excellent in how well they eliminate Shibito. However, just because you have a subpar weapon doesn't mean that you're out of luck. By sneaking up on an unsuspecting monster, you can trigger a "finishing move" that knocks the creature out for much more time, making it a bit easier to move through each level and accomplish the various subgoals and goals for that particular chapter.